I have to admit I’m a bit behind in my practicum because I got sick and was out of it for about a week. And when you only go to the site for two days that’s a big chunk of time missed. But I’m so lucky my practicum supervisor didn’t mind, although I don’t know what I would have done if she had. Anyway when I finally made it back to the site I accompanied my supervisor to a what they call a BI class. (I’m not quite sure what BI stands for…Basic Instruction; Better Improvisation; Bald Iguanas…okay maybe not the last one. I guess it would be considered an one shot library instruction class. Normally about 30 minutes, can be in the regular classroom or one of the library’s classrooms. Sometimes they are attached to specific assignment and sometimes the professor just wants to introduce their class to the library. The class we went to was a freshman seminar for film studies. Later on that day I attended an advance class for LibGuides, which my supervisor put together. She’s really skilled in creating LibGuides and is the process of possibly writing a book about it.

I can’t begin to say how great it is that I’m able to observe so many different aspects of instruction with this practicum. There’s something to say about just watching someone else do something. When I first started I was apprehensive about that aspect but now I can’t wait to actually start instructing. Weird. Being on the reference desk helps a bunch as well. I’m able to mini instruction to students who haven’t really used a college library for research. It was interesting to see my supervisor actually in the class room as I had been observing a newer librarian where as my supervisor has been in the field for a while. I could see how she’s use to teaching a new set of freshman almost every class. She’s not all that old, maybe late 30’s perhaps 40s (I’m horrible at guessing age) but she understands the need to keep it relevant. Since the course was film studies, she talked about getting a subscription with Netflix to watch the documentaries at home. How to find some of the older films on YouTube. Connecting to producers and directors via Facebook and twitter, places that they are already visiting. But then bringing in how Britannica online is one of the main front runners in providing media items. So tying in something they might already be aware of from the past (at least for me, I’m not sure my 16-year-old brother would know what the old Britannica books are.)

Cover of Britannica Encyclopedia (Encyclopaedia)

I’m still plugging away on the APA style guide, because I’m working from scratch and using the manual as a guide. When they got the MLA style up it quickly became their no. 1 most used guide in less than 2 months. So we know that my guide will get used…which means I want to make sure it’s correct. As I’ve found mistakes on a number of other guides posted by other colleges. The next thing I’m going to try my hand is volunteering for a personal research session. I’m waiting on one that I know some background on it.